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Author:
A review of Biblical by Christopher Galt
I would categorise Biblical as historical surrealistic science fiction—or better yet, philosophical science fiction. However, it crosses almost every genre. Galt (the pseudonym of a mysterious best-selling crime fiction author) is clearly a master storyteller. He hasn’t simply grabbed an idea and run with it. The amount of research that has gone into the book is mind-numbing—and it’s detailed: Viking history, the holocaust and the complexities of quantum physics just to name a few.
The Expanse of Emotions: Love is the Future by singer-songwriter John Legend
The pianist and singer John Legend’s album Love in the Future is a return to the kind of confident sentimentality that once was the province of most popular music stars, but for years now love has been replaced by sexual aggression and contempt and social violence as focus in a lot of mainstream culture. Legend’s song collection is emotional, lush, and contemporary: it is betting that there is still an audience that wants to hear a young, confident and successful African-American male make such romantic declarations.
A review of The Killer Is Dying by James Sallis
Without wishing it to sound anything like routine: another extraordinary novel from James Sallis.
This one, like many of his others, is hard to pin down exactly. Paranormal, science-fiction and metaphysical elements vie within a crime story a la Savage Night, about a hitman on his last job. Perhaps that catch-all label ‘slipstream’ will have to cover it.
An Interview with Deborah Doucette
The author of The Forgotten Roses talks about her plot, her themes, her characters, her approach to characterisation, how she began writing, her greatest challenges, her writing process, her research, her influences, what’s on her night stand, and lots more.
A review of The Lost Girls by Wendy James
Though solving the crime does certainly drive the narrative pace in The Lost Girls, this book is a rich, dense novel, that goes so much deeper than whodunit. As is almost always the case with Wendy James, her blockbuster, airport styled covers belie the fact that this is as much literary fiction as it is a crime novel, driven, above all, by character development and exquisite writing.
Mainstream Maverick: The Biography and Work of Robert Redford, incl. All Is Lost (& Selected Books)
Appearance or truth? Both? Form and spirit. There has been a tension in our appreciation for Robert Redford, a dedicated actor and filmmaker who also happens to be an image of masculine beauty. Redford, as a young man of impulse and integrity, and not a little rebellion, was interested in adventurous exploration, whether involving art, travel, or relationships. Everything considered, he was a lot less selfish and shallow than most of us would be. That may be part of why he has become such an intriguing and respectable elder statesman.
A review of The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
Kidd’s extensive historical research does much more than provide a backdrop to the story. The period details further the plot. For instance, the Grimke family acquires a state-of-the-art copper bathing tub on wheels, an innovation which allows a lying-down bath, and can be drained rather than dumped or bailed. When Sarah discovers Handful emerging from this tub in her room she feels, at first, that her privacy has been invaded. Then she realizes that “Handful had immersed herself in forbidden privileges, yes, but mostly in the belief that she was worthy of these privileges.
A review of Hand In Glove by Paddy Bostock
Hand in Glove is a different type of mystery that will make you wonder whether a comedy team such as Abbot and Costello wrote the script, acted it out in order to elicit the laughs readers will get when reading this book. The characters are quite different and yet all they want to do is solve the case but not before some other wild and zany things happen.
A review of The Man Who Couldn’t Stop—OCD, and the true story of a life lost in thought by David Adam
In The Man Who Couldn’t Stop, David Adam provides a compelling history of mental dysfunction, its various treatments and cites numerous cases of the miraculous and downright bizarre. But far more than being a book filled with facts and figures, this is a story about Adam’s own battle with OCD, which began early in his childhood. No one understands the effect OCD has on a life quite like a sufferer, and it’s this unique insight that sets this book apart from others of its ilk.